TOP HONOURS: Wurrook stud’s Jacob Quarrell with the Champion Superfine ewe awarded at this year’s Australian Sheep and Wool Show in Bendigo. The ewe also won the Grand Champion ewe at Ballarat and the Rabobank Australian Supreme Merino ewe in Dubbo.

Paul and Kylie Walton will offer 108 rams on Thursday, October 25, at the Wurrook on-property auction at Rokewood this year including 24 from the Wurrook Poll stud.

The spring drop catalogued rams will include 74 two-year-old March shorn rams that were used over Wurrook’s stud and commercial ewes in autumn this year. There will also be 34 one-year-old April shorn rams on offer.

Mr Walton said the auction rams were one of the best teams Wurrook has ever offered.

“This year’s rams are a strong reflection of our breeding objectives which include producing as big a sheep with as good a wool of that type that will handle our climate,” he said.

These objectives have stood Wurrook in good stead at the major Sheep Shows in recent years. After winning Supreme exhibit at the Australian Sheep and Wool Show (ASWS) in Bendigo in 2015 and 2016, Wurrook took out the Grand Champion Merino ewe at the ASWS for the second year in a row in 2017.

This year, Wurrook won the Rabobank Australian Supreme Merino Ewe at Dubbo with a Superfine Wurrook Grand Monarch family ewe and the Landmark Australian Supreme Merino Ewe at Hamilton Sheepvention with a Wurrook Giant family ewe.

Other show highlights included Grand Champion Ewe at Ballarat, Grand Champion Superfine Ram at Ballarat and Hamilton.

Mr Walton said the Wurrook team tries to keep things fairly simple.

“We’ve got our type of sheep that suits our area best and a direction we’re happy with which we just keep working to without getting sidetracked.”

Wurrook also artificially inseminates a large number of their top stud ewes each year to top sires because Mr Walton said that was the most effective way of increasing the rate of genetic gain in the flock.

In the past 18 months the stud has purchased shares in some exciting new sires. These include, in the horn stud a $32,000 Merryville Grand Monarch family ram, a $60,000 Yarrawonga Purple family ram and semen from one of Tara Park’s top sires.

In the poll stud Wurrook have a share in a $27,000 Terrick West ram, sired by a Poll Boonoke ram, out of one of their top Roseville Park blood ewes.

The stud has also used semen from the poll Rock-Bank ram that won the Australian Supreme Merino ram at Dubbo this year.